MT. HOLLY, N.C. — President Barack Obama visited a North Carolina truck plant Wednesday to call for new incentives for Americans to build and buy alternative fuel vehicles.

“We’re going to give you an incentive to do things in a different way,” Obama said at the Daimler Trucks North America manufacturing plant here after touring an assembly line where truck chassis are built and installed.

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Obama talks green cars in N.C.

Two of Obama’s new programs are contests intended to help accelerate deployment and adoption of advanced vehicles; the other is a package of tax incentives for alt-fueled vehicles.

Obama also used his speech to try to deflate campaign rhetoric around rising gas prices, telling listeners to remember that gas price spikes are cyclical, and “you and I both know there are no quick fixes to this problem.”

The president's post-Super Tuesday visit to this town just outside Charlotte is his fourth in the last six months to this battleground state and comes as gas prices continue to rise.

He made a passing reference to the Republican race, mentioning "folks" who see more drilling for oil as the way to cut energy prices. And he took a shot at Newt Gingrich, who on the stump likes to say he has a plan to reduce gas prices to $2.50 per gallon.

“Next time you hear some politician trotting out some 3-point plan for $2 gas, you let them know we know better,” Obama said.

He set up a sharp divide between the “old ways of doing business” — fossil fuels — and his plan to boost alternative-fueled and more efficient vehicles, challenging Americans to “wean ourselves off of the old and grab the new.”

Obama also called on Congress to eliminate tax incentives for oil and natural gas, and exhorted the crowd to contact their members of Congress “in between shifts.”

“There’s no excuse to wait any longer. We should put every member of Congress on record,” Obama said. “They can stand up for the oil companies or they can stand up for the American people and this new energy future.”

Brazil has rapidly developed natural gas as a primary replacement for traditional gas powered engines. Natural Gas is currently available for less than three dollars per thousand cubic feet in many parts of the United States. Providing fuel stations for natural gas powered vehicles has been a slow process in the United States. GE announced today that it will be offering easy to install mass manufactured natural gas stations in the very near future. Expect natural gas powered eighteen wheelers to become more common as these stations are introduced throughout the country. This revolution will go a long way towards reducing our requirements for expensive crude oil imports.

Natural gas is powering an ever wider variety of electrical grids and stand alone manufacturing facilities. Most electric cars are powered by electricity that comes from coal or natural gas electric plants. Consumers will decide whether to fill up on natural gas or plug into natural gas powered electric outlets. Considerable energy is lost in getting electricity across power lines to customers Battery powered vehicles.

There is a HUGH difference between Developing Technology and producing inefficient, overly expensive, alternative-fueled vehicles. To date this administration has wasted tens of billions of dollars supporting their friends and financial supporters in Green $ Energy. If he were really serious that money would be spent on Research and Development. So what we have is a transfer of taxpayer funds to friends and supporters of Obama at the expense of the American Citizen.

There is a HUGH difference between Developing Technology and producing inefficient, overly expensive, alternative-fueled vehicles. To date this administration has wasted tens of billions of dollars supporting their friends and financial supporters in Green $ Energy. If he were really serious that money would be spent on Research and Development. So what we have is a transfer of taxpayer funds to friends and supporters of Obama at the expense of the American Citizen.

Over 30 years of gas pressure by the oil barons and probably another 30 or more to go. Gas pricing is a serious TAX by big business as it has been . Sucking every dollar it can and selling it around the globe.If you enjoy this TAX and the continuing games by big oil don't change anything. If it stays the same , how can you expect change.

Past time to do something. 1st end the subsides that are increasing the debt. We can't afford them any more.Look what we get in return.

Unlike Obama, Mitt hates high gas prices. As we can see, Obama has a history of praying for high gas prices.

President Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu uttered the kind of Washington gaffe that consists of telling the truth when inconvenient. According to Politico, Chu admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices.

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On June 10, 2008 in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, then-candidate Barack Obama said,Asked if high gasoline prices would help, Obama answered, “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing.”

Also in 2008, Stephen Chu, who became Obama’s Energy secretary, was quoted as saying, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

O.K. barry , I inflated all four of my tires like you told us to do in your election campaign and my gas prices have done nothing but go up ? So either you were lying to us again or you are as dumb as we all thought .

Meanwhile the national debt rose $4B, and Barnake announced the Fed is going to start playing with the money supply. And Baraq wants to talk about how he's right about mandating birth control, and the Catholic Church, whicxh he and the democrats hate, are wrong. Oh, and "Here son, have a green car!"